Wine, weddings and ballet: new role for indie cinemas at heart of high streets

Independent cinema has never known a time like it. From themed weddings to live-streamed operas and interactive movie nights, indie theatres are reinventing themselves as the new entertainment hubs on the high street – eating into the market share of the multiplex giants and in-home rivals such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

These independents accounted for almost a quarter – 23% – of all screens nationwide in 2016, up from 17% the year before, according to data from research firm Mintel, released before the BFI’s annual review of the cinema industry this week. The figures represent a huge turnaround, given that many of these venues were on the verge of closing down a few years ago.

“Independent cinemas are broadening what they offer and taking a much more fundamental role in local communities,” says Ben Luxford, head of audience development at the BFI.

The BFI calculates that independent cinemas, in real terms, have an even bigger slice of the market – around 34% – when you include venues that have been taken over by larger brands, such as Picturehouse. “I think there’s something increasingly important about them – they’re helping you identify who you are,” Luxford adds.

Film and theatre director Sam Neophytou would vouch for that. Together with a small group of actor friends, he founded the Arthouse in Crouch End, north London in 2014, converting a former snooker hall into an indie cinema. Its two 85-seater screens have been a huge success.

A party at the Duke of York’s Picture House in Brighton. Photograph: Handout

“People want to be in this kind of environment rather than a multiplex where there isn’t that intimacy,” he says.

At the heart of the renaissance has been the diversification of what indie cinemas offer, says Neophytou. Q&As with the likes of director Ken Loach – who discussed the wider issues relating to his film I, Daniel Blake – have put his venue on the map. But it is the communal experience of the place that has made it so popular, he says. “Everyone lives half a mile away, so you know everyone – that’s the beauty of it. But it’s also about bringing the world into this little cinema,” he adds.

Arthouse live-streams productions from the National Theatre, the Royal Opera House and the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon.

“Councils around London, especially in regeneration areas, want to replicate what we’ve done here – they want to put the heart back into the high street,” Neophytou says, adding that he is planning three further London venues – in Enfield and Archway to the north and Docklands to the east.

“Live-streaming and satellite has really saved our bacon,” says Felicity Beckett, who manages the Duke of Yorks Picture House in Brighton. “It started with the Met opera in New York – we’d show the matinee at nine o’clock at night, and it would sell out in a heartbeat. I’d never experienced anything like it. People would queue up to thank me at the end of the screening.”

One of the newest indies is the Regent Cinema in Blackpool, which has been open for just six months. Owner Richard Taylor bought the Grade II-listed former cinema and bingo hall for £100,000 at auction and spent the same amount restoring it to its former glory.

“When I walked into the building it just had a right good feel to it,” he recalls. “For me, it’s about nostalgia. Money isn’t a driving force. We want to put something on that makes people happy.”

The Arthouse cinema in Crouch End, north London. Photograph: Alamy

The cinema screens everything from classic Charlie Chaplin films of the 1920s to the latest Star Wars blockbuster, and is bringing bingo back to the building for the first time in 50 years. “When I started this, I expected to get an older demographic,” Taylor says. “But the spread is much wider. Younger people are coming too. They love the feeling of going back in time.”

When Lyndsey Holden, from Birmingham, was planning her wedding last year, she didn’t want a church or a register office, but “something a bit quirky and out-there”, she says.

She and husband-to-be James Burrows ended up walking down the aisle of their local indie cinema, the Electric, flanked by half a dozen stormtroopers and a 6ft 7in Chewbacca. “Even the registrar did his reading in a Yoda voice. It was fab,” Holden says.

The cinema’s manager, Sam Bishop, says he is constantly thinking up new ideas to get people through the door. Special wine-tasting evenings have been staged in sync with the film Sideways, pausing the movie whenever the main characters have a drink and serving customers the same wine. “You drink cathartically with their journey and leave as spiritually uplifted – and as drunk – as the main characters,” says Bishop. There are similar exercises for foodies, for example Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, where movie-goers sample the same chocolate treats as the characters eat. “They’ve been a big success,” Bishop adds.

The challenge, though, is to keep offering something different. Bishop has just negotiated a deal with an owl trainer for an upcoming Harry Potter-themed wedding. “The best man is going to pretend he’s forgotten the ring, but then an owl is going to swoop down with it attached,” he says.

In the projection room at Brighton’s Duke of Yorks, Jimmy Anderson has seen cinema fads come and go over almost 40 years. “It’s changed a lot. I never thought I’d be showing opera, ballet and the National Theatre live,” he says. He thinks there is more pressure now, with the weddings and the live events: “It’s a lot of responsibility. I don’t want to muck up someone’s wedding.”

For him, nothing beats showing films on the big 35mm film reels. He is preparing one as we chat, 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula starring Gary Oldman. “We’ve already sold 100 tickets for this showing,” he says. “I tell you what, though, these things weigh a ton. I’m getting too old to lug them up the stairs. That’s one good thing about all the modern stuff. You just have to press a button.”

NEW CINEMAS

THE EVERYMAN, HARROGATE

A five-screen cinema opened in September, on the site of a demolished Beales department store.

CURZON GOLDSMITHS, LONDON

A partnership with Goldsmiths, University of London and Curzon Cinemas, the venue launched on the university’s New Cross campus in September. It is open on weekday evenings and all day at the weekends and shows arthouse films, live theatre, opera and music.

THE REGENT CINEMA, BLACKPOOL

The Regent opened in 1921, with 1,092 seats and a retractable roof but has been used as a bingo hall since the 1960s. It reopened last summer as an independent cinema showing classic films.